The Little Copper Cooking Pot
by Innocent Magic
Summary: "I was sixteen when she committed suicide. She'd been my mama, my best friend even through Hogwarts, and I'd loved her. And I'm happy now, I promise. Just, when that happiness needs a slight push to start up, I retreat to the kitchens and I cook." The story of Aoife and her seventh year at Hogwarts as she comes to terms with a lot of harsh truths and a little bit of love.
1. Chapter 1

**The Little Copper Cooking Pot**

November 28th found me in the kitchens, surrounded by helpful little house elves, stirring a small copper pot filled with hand-made chicken soup. I wasn't technically allowed in the kitchens, and I definitely wasn't allowed to be out of my Slytherin rooms at this late hour, but the professors would understand. I had to cook if I wanted to be happy.

Mama always cooked when she was happy. She'd line up a dozen bowls of flour and egg and all kinds of spices, and we'd spend an hour just choosing which way we'd bread or batter our chicken this time. And by the time I was seven, it was my sole responsibility to give the chicken a good whack with the spatula until the poor piece of meat was flat enough. She'd help me wash my hands under the tap, using her wand to levitate me just slightly so that I could reach the stream of water. And she'd always, _always_, let me shape the pasta exactly how I wanted.

When she was down, though, her wand took care of everything for her. I tried to lend a hand whenever I was around, but this only ever seemed to push her further into despair and guilt, so we learned to compromise: when she needed me most, we'd settle in front of her Muggle television and watch whatever we wanted, drinking cheap Coca-Cola from wine glasses, pretending we were fancy. Sometimes, just sometimes, I could make her smile. A genuine smile, I mean. She always put one on for show for me.

I admit that I worried for her while I was at school, but I was under orders to live my life as any other person should at Hogwarts. Mama's ex-boyfriend – my estranged dad – dropped by every so often to check up on her, but he had a busy job and a life of his own to live. He cared, just sometimes that seemed the worst possible thing he could do, and mama said too much of his Gryffindor must have rubbed off on her to make her give him up.

I was sixteen when she committed suicide.

If I'm honest, I'd always been slightly ready for it, always a little proud of her for continuing as long as she did. She'd never been truly happy, not by normal standards; there had been plenty of 'low' periods to prove it.

That didn't mean it didn't crush me to hear she was gone. She'd been my mama, my best friend even through Hogwarts, and I'd loved her. I know she loved me back just as much – I was her 'baby Aoife'. There still wasn't a day, exactly a year on, when I didn't think of her

She died on November 28th, just a few months into my sixth year at school. I received a letter by owl the next morning – her owl, Pecan – that she'd deliberately delayed. She'd gone peacefully, she'd told me, though she never once mentioned exactly how. The coroners hadn't told me either, and I think for that I'm thankful. Aged sixteen, it had been hard enough just wrapping my head around the idea that my beloved mama had finally snapped.

I wasn't alone though. Mama had made sure there were support systems in place for me, people who would gladly take me in over the holidays and would love me like a daughter. She hadn't been good friends with many people, but there were enough. Mr Malfoy had always held a soft spot for me - the 'true spawn of Satan', he named me, after I encouraged his then infant son, Scorpius, to direct an especially volatile bout of accidental magic at one of Nana Narcissa's stinging plants. She had them placed sporadically at the forefront of the flower beds to stop the young ones touching the more exotic plants hidden behind.

I'd been stung just that afternoon and was feeling… petulant, to say the least. Mama had been furious that I'd used a boy a year my junior to dispose of one of Cissa's plants, but she could never stay mad at me for too long, and the Malfoy's always appreciate a show of the Snake.

It felt right that the Malfoys should extend an invitation to stay as long as I required, though I all but forced them to allow me not to take advantage of them. I was tasked with tutoring darling Scorpius during the holidays, to protect him during term-time (we never told him about this), and to baby-sit Auriana (their adorable little daughter, ten years younger than myself) when the adults attended functions.

And when I returned to Hogwarts for my final year of schooling, it was with a small portion of the money left to me by mama that I purchased all of my school supplies. She would have been so proud of me, made prefect in my final year, maybe even more than she had been when we'd received my OWL results.

Mama had been a bright student back in the day, and was still incredibly perceptive and quick until the very end. Mental illness had never dared dull the mind she had. Yet she'd never pressured me to live up to her example. I had struggled, during first and second year, to find the right balance between my friends (crossing all four houses, it was difficult to keep everyone content at times), my learning, and my fretting over what might be happening at home.

During the summer before third year, Mama and I had worked through my textbooks near on every day. Even during her down moments, she was determined we would get it right. She had a patience with me the teachers rarely manage (perhaps due to the company I keep).

My grades rose steadily from then on, until I achieved Es and Os in all my subjects in fifth year. I maintain to this day that she went overboard in celebrating my results, buying me new dress-robes and taking us both out to the most expensive restaurant in Diagon Alley, _Le Chaudron D'or_.

But she was happy, so who was I to complain.

And I'm happy now, I promise.

Just, when that happiness needs a slight push to start up, I retreat to the kitchens and I cook.

So here I am, on the 28th November, remembering my mama and bending over a bubbling pot to take in the scent of home. Even the house elves at Malfoy Manor had never been able to produce something that smelt as delicious as mama's home-made soup recipe. I think they used too much pepper, personally.

While thinking on this, I fail to notice the shadow creeping up behind me. It's not until an arm wraps around me that I begin thinking this might turn out very, very badly indeed.

* * *

_I hope you liked the first installment. It's a multi-chapter story that **will **be completed, but reviews (favourable or not) are always a nice incentive to continue on. I should mention here that I do not own Harry Potter, or even James Sirius Potter, the Malfoy family (except Auriana), or anything else you recognise from the world of JK Rowling. Thank you to everyone who reads The Little Copper Cooking Pot!_

_* * * Innocent Magic * * *_


	2. Chapter 2

_While thinking on this, I fail to notice the shadow creeping up behind me. It's not until an arm wraps around me that I begin thinking this might turn out very, very badly indeed._

I shrieked, loudly, and stamped my foot down hard. Or, at least, as hard as I could when scared witless next to a simmering cooking pot. As it turns out, that was hard enough.

"Good Godric, woman!" yelled a familiar voice.

I kept my wooden spoon in hand, just in case I was misplacing that voice – should it be an imposter with impeccable voice-acting talents, I'd have to be prepared to strike. Turning around slowly, the first thing I noticed was the sudden lack of house elves. I could see a number of the older ones shuffling as fast as they could away from where I (and the person no longer holding my waist) stood. They're not too keen on conflict, I don't think.

When I completed a full one-eighty, I came face to face with a stooping, wincing, _whining _James Sirius Potter.

My other half, you might say.

Just don't say that anywhere around either of us, or anyone else for that matter, unless you want to experience the wand-work of a witch with six Os under her belt and a penchant for Transfiguration.

He was my other half, technically, in that we were paired for the term to carry out our prefect rounds together. One evening a week, from nine until ten thirty, we were to patrol the corridors on the east side of the castle, docking points (or, more usually, letting go with a warning) any potential trouble-makers and students out of bed.

It was an arrangement that suited us fine, being that we've been cautious friends for some time now. Although I am a resolute Slytherin, cunning and conniving to the core, and although Jamie is most definitely the ideal Gryffindor (pig-headed and stubborn, cough), we share an interesting history in Transfiguration.

Jamie, rather unfortunately, is extremely gifted at spell-work. For the first couple of years of Hogwarts, I was not. When we entered Professor Forbish's classroom on the first day of third year, we were, without any consultation, assigned our paired desks for the year based on how well we fared in our end of year tests – which, of course, I'd failed abysmally. The weakest were with the strongest, so I ended up with the boy who took house rivalries a step too far sometimes, Potter.

It was quite funny, the first few weeks of term, watching Jamie's reactions to everything I did. Each lesson, I seemed to be re-reminding him that Slytherins were as normal a group of people as anyone else. He'd give a startled little jump in his seat whenever I giggled at the goings on of the class, and would watch me warily whenever I picked my wand up from the desk.

In one lesson, I tried making it the whole way through without setting the piece of silver birch down at all – by the end he looked at once close to fainting, and relieved.

The real problem that year was in what the teachers saw. That was the year after mama took charge of my learning, the year I really began to flourish, most notably in Transfiguration and Charms. Mama had helped me to understand enough of the theory for the basic spells that from there everything appeared a lot more natural.

All my professors, however, were unaware of the input at home and put my rapid progress down to the influence of my class-partner.

From then on, we were a team. It was fairly convenient, to be honest, given how I was still not at my best in the more artistic subjects such as Potions and Ancient Runes, and how Jamie, in his panic to live up to his father's talents, had become lost in Defence Against the Dark Arts. Like yin and yang, we fitted together just enough to make it through that year in good spirits with houses forgotten.

It stayed in the classroom and the study rooms through the start of this year, though. Even when I could be found helping his sister, Lily, get the hang of how to survive our house of scheming and networking while maintaining sanity, Jamie and I kept a respectful distance. His friends were my friends, sure, but we never once spoke unless it was to do with schoolwork.

Our friendship passed as I assume do all of Rose Weasley's. Maybe that's rude of me to say, but Scorpius thinks she works too hard as well, and he sees her far more often than I do.

For seventh year, I've seen a small change. He smiles more at me, for one. That may sound a ridiculous thing to notice – he's James Potter, for Merlin's sake, Quidditch captain, Gryffindor prefect and all-around Golden Boy. He's always smiling. But when he smiles at me, there's something different. There's a sense of _trying _in his smiles; they're the sort you give when you have to break bad news to a small child, but want to cheer them up first.

It's as though he's trying to make me happy.

I really don't like it.

But as I stood there staring down at his handsome face screwed up in pain (I'll never now doubt my strength when terrified; perhaps I should have become a Beater), I reminded myself to calm. The soup would be ready soon and then I could ask him – very politely and very much in tune with my search for happiness – if he could never, ever, _ever _sneak up on me again. Ever.

I offered him an apologetic smile and a hand to get him back upright, before giving him a quick once over. Just to make sure the whole affair was safe. Those brown eyes looked like his alright, and there was the small scar under his eyebrow, the story of which I hadn't yet been made privy to. They would all be replicated easily by a Polyjuice Potion though.

It was that Godric-awful smile which cinched it. I was in the clear this time.

"Give me a second, Jamie," I said, just as the pot behind me began to hiss, "I'll deal you out some soup, if you'd like, and then I might forgive you for that heart attack."

I let my lips spread into a tiny grin despite myself. With my pulse returning to normal, and my fear lessening with each word, there really was no reason to hold a grudge. There was also no reason not to make him sweat. It was my right as a Slytherin to get back at him, just a bit, for interrupting my memories of mama.

As I spun back to finish the dish and serve it out, I heard a chair scrape somewhere close, and the soft footsteps of a house elf feeling obliged to serve.

"Would you be liking Pumpkin Juice, sir?"

The high pitched voices of house elves had always grated on my nerves, even though I know they can't help it. James was mumbling some kind of reply to the creature, from what I could tell, but I couldn't catch its name. The only one I could tell apart from the rest was Knotty, and that was only because he was the cousin Scorpius' own elf, Misky, and had occasionally dropped by over the summer to help with the big banquets Cissa kept throwing for all her different charities.

I set Jamie's soup bowl in front of him with a little bit of expectation. I rarely cooked for anybody else, and I had only prepared two meals for other people since mama left: Auriana and Scorpius knew better than to let me know if it tasted disgusting. James, on the other hand, couldn't be trusted in the same way.

We ate in silence for several minutes.

My own was nice, for all it mattered. It wasn't the same as the way mama had made it, not yet, but I'm not sure if I'd ever feel comfortable replicating her taste exactly – I don't like the thought of it ever being something I associated not solely with her. But it was close enough that I felt some comfort. Midnight soup was my favourite recipe for late-night doses happiness.

Eventually, though, the stifling quiet became too much. There was something off about the picture, the two of us sitting over a bench in the kitchens eating the soup I'd spent an hour cooking. There was something even more off about the way he'd thought to greet me. I know he's a prankster, and I know he's no qualms about personal space, but since when had we been on hugging terms? I didn't even know we'd reached the touching stage yet.

I coughed, just once, to grab his attention.

With a piercing look directly into his eyes, I spoke up, softly, but determined.

"What on Earth are you doing here frightening innocent women, Jamie?!"

* * *

_Thank you to Errow, my first reviewer, and to the people who followed and favourited this story already! I hope the second chapter pleases you; I'm worried I'm straying too much into description, but it needs to be covered, and she's having a night of contemplation and reminiscing anyway. Reviews would definitely spur me on to writing the next chapter as quick as possible, but for now I'm going to go to bed. Thank you for reading,_

_* * * Innocent Magic * * *_


	3. Chapter 3

_"What on Earth are you doing here frightening innocent women, Jamie?!"_

"You're hardly an innocent woman, Horlons," he smirked, "It's after hours, isn't it?"

"I should say the same to you!" I replied, indignant. He held my gaze just a little longer, but everyone cracks sooner or later.

He sighed.

"For your information, Lily came to ask if I'd seen you an hour or so ago, and Al said he'd seen you in the 'Puff corridors. This is the only place I'd go around here."

I suppose the explanation was plausible. Little Lily and I had quite a close attachment, despite the age gap and our lack of relation. She was Scorpius' friend, a frequent visitor at the manor, and just cute enough still that I consider her a pseudo-sister. Maybe she fancied a chat.

"Is she alright?"

"Charms query, that's all. We sorted it in the end, so don't waste yourself fretting." I couldn't discern his emotions any more than I ever could my own.

He sounded cheerful, and his words were in good fun, but that smile! I wasn't one to hate – I was the daughter of a fragile woman and I lived with the Malfoys, after all, to whom hate is not for a lady to feel – but surely the way in which I disliked that false, pitying smile must have come close.

I wanted to snap at him for looking at me that way. I wanted to really let go at him for intruding on my cooking time for such a blasé reason. Most of all, I wanted to berate him for not having the manners to comment on the soup I'd made.

"You make a nice soup," he added.

Well that cleared that up, at least.

"Look," he said, "I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I didn't mean to scare you, Aoife."

There was nothing I desired more than to let out my own sigh, but that wouldn't help matters. What I needed was a television set and a wine glass filled with Coca-Cola. And mama. I really needed my mama.

I put on a strained smile, looking sheepishly towards Jamie.

"Thank you for checking on me, but I'm okay, really. I just need some sleep."

I hastened to gather up my bowl and put it in the sink before wrapping my robes tightly around my delicate frame. In just seven steps, I made it to the door or the kitchens. My movements were hurried; all thoughts of maintaining grace were gone. Jamie, I could see, only watched me with care.

And it was only as I made to cross the threshold that he spoke again.

Right as I pushed open the portrait hole, I heard him call behind me, and it chilled my bones.

"You're not okay. You're lying, Horlons."

Merlin, that boy had some nerve.

Before I could even begin to think over his words, I had made it down to the dungeons. The rest of that night, I couldn't keep still, couldn't settle. Concealed behind the curtains of my bed, and silenced by a spell Mr Malfoy had taught me over the summer – _Muffliato _– I let myself fall into fond memories. My hands ran over and over the pages of the pretty photo-book my mama had left for me when she passed. I'd kept it in pristine condition thus far, the pink crepe covering protected by a simple shield charm to keep it from tearing.

As dawn broke, I finally drifted off to sleep.

Unfortunately, November 29th was a Thursday, and just an hour later I was rising again. My honey-blond hair fell in tangles to the small of my back, and my grey irises stood out awfully against my bloodshot eyes. Even my normally smooth skin was against me at the early hour.

Being too exhausted to know where to start, I called in reinforcements. I was close to most of my room-mates, but most of all to Evelina and Grace-Adele, and it was they who saved my face (and my reputation).

I held a position high up in the social hierarchy of the school, well put-together, and known across all four houses for my friendships there.

In Ravenclaw, I spent a great deal of time with Reine Forkes, one of the first girls I met on the Hogwarts Express in first year. Shorter than me, she made a formidable chaser on her Quidditch team. She was the person with whom I studied when I couldn't find Jamie, and with whom I could moan about the endless gossip passed around about me. She understood me and I her.

Then there were Siobhan and Cieran O'Callaghan, the Hufflepuff twins, who I first met while rescuing Scorpius in his first week in the castle. He'd gotten lost, and I'd been running myself ragged trying to chase him down, lest he miss dinner. When I'd finally tracked him down, he'd been telling Siobhan with unparalleled enthusiasm, all about his first week of classes. I used to think he had a crush on her, before I learnt that she wasn't exactly his type. Regardless, they always knew how to get a proper laugh out of me, and were good for letting off steam.

The Gryffindors, I had expected would be the hardest to befriend. Mama had always warned me of the rivalries that existed while she was at school, stories of segregation of the school population and violent Quidditch matches with fouls every other minute. Yet in our first flying lesson, I'd been approached by a pretty auburn haired girl, who'd asked me to show her how I had managed to get my broom in hand. Delilah Finnegan was perhaps my closest friend of all, although her father forbade her from visiting me at the Manor now. She brought me out of my worrisome shell, and in return for my teaching her broom skills, she taught me how to feel carefree.

Only sometimes, though. I had a reputation to uphold, after all.

I am to Slytherin what Lily Potter should have been to Gryffindor; their princess, some say. Mama had been royalty while she'd been at school, a descendent of the First and Oldest House of Brethwick. It was testament to her power over the student body that her place at the helm of her house was untarnished by her family's lack of commitment to the Second Wizarding War.

In many ways, I think that's what drew her to Uncle Zabini. He, too, had been neutral, mama used to say. It had been years since I'd last seen him, but I knew that hadn't been our ending. My mama's best friend would drop by soon enough, I just knew it.

Maybe if they'd fallen in love, instead of mama falling for my dad, a Muggle-born Gryffindor four years above her, he might have managed to keep her going, keep that spark alive. I'd never seen her as animated as she was around him, even when they'd only sit together the homely sofa in our flat and chat about nothing of consequence.

Uncle Zabini had been my hero for that, for giving mama back a piece of herself when she was down.

It wouldn't do well to be lost in daydreams while Evelina worked so hard to doll me up, and Gracie, her black curls bouncing as she rushed about the room, dug out a freshly ironed uniform for me to wear.

They didn't know what was the matter. Nobody outside mama's circle of close friends had been informed of our loss. We were Slytherins – we were just as prideful as any Gryff when the occasion called.

"You can talk to either of us if you need to," Evelina said, soothing down my now perfectly coifed hair, "We'll listen whenever you want us, Aoife."

I felt a familiar surge of affection for them both as I pulled on my stockings. I couldn't bear being left out of any loop, but they had a patience, the both of them, that I had to admire.

"I know," I murmured. Gracie gave a nod to show she'd heard, but no other acknowledgement was given beyond that.

Arm in arm in arm, the three of us descended to the common room as a fortress, impenetrable. No one stood in our way as we strode purposefully out into the corridors, bags knocking against our backs and legs, robes blowing slightly in the chill of the dungeons.

Evelina was the one to choose our topic of conversation for that morning.

"Did you hear about Joseph Ickes, the cute Ravenclaw who left last year? Only gone and got himself a starting spot for the Magpies, the rogue!"

* * *

_Please review, readers! Anything to tell me whether you like how I'm writing the story or not? I think there's too much history, but I keep getting so caught up with new ideas. There's no plan for this story, just a general idea of turning points I'd like it to take, and the idea of Aoife and her little copper cooking pot. Thank you for reading,_

_* * * Innocent Magic * * *_


	4. Chapter 4

_Evelina was the one to choose our topic of conversation for that morning. _

_"Did you hear about Joseph Ickes, the cute Ravenclaw who left last year? Only gone and got himself a starting spot for the Magpies, the rogue!"_

Head high, I entered the Transfiguration room, ignoring the students around me whispering to themselves about some gossip or other. It didn't concern me, that much I could tell.

My regular seat beside Jamie was on the far side of the classroom, beside the windows. Already I was beginning to regret not asking Grace to throw an extra cardigan onto the pile of clothes she picked out.

I could just make out the first snowflakes beginning to settle as Professor Forbish used his wand to set off his customary sparks to call us to attention.

"I'll need you focused today, seventh years," his voice carried over all of us, right to the back of the room. "We're continuing on the topic of human transfiguration. By the end of the hour, I want you all to have managed to alter at least one feature on your partner's face."

There came immediately the murmur of two dozen students eagerly conversing with their partners over the opportunities and problems the task could present. Jamie and I were no different.

"What do you think, Horlons?" he asked, eyebrow raised, "Would you prefer a pig snout or something more inventive?"

I smiled, considering the possibilities.

"You can choose," I replied with a gentle laugh, "I'm having too much trouble deciding which part of your face needs improvement most desperately."

He had the courtesy to play along, as I knew he would. The Potters, so far as I had seen, could never resist joking around. He'd matured a lot over the years, both in personality and in looks, but there was still a trace of that same childish James who had teased a poor eleven year old Albus mercilessly about the risk he ran of being sorted into Slytherin. Never mind that Al has less of the Snake in him than my paternal grandmother.

"Let's get this over with then," he said kindly, "Fancy going first?"

We turned to face each other, and Jamie was clearly struggling to keep his face impassive as per the instructions in the textbook – I presume it was because my own face was so screwed up in concentration.

The theory for human transfiguration was complicated enough when it involved the muscles and skin and hair you'd known intimately for seventeen years. This was a new ballpark altogether.

And it showed in my shoddy first attempt.

"Woman wept!" he exclaimed – a little melodramatically, in my opinion. "What did you do?"

He'd caught the rest of the room's attention with his outburst, and I could only watch helplessly as the eyebrow I'd been attempting to transfigure into a caterpillar instead grew and grew. It didn't show signs of stopping, even as it began to shroud his entire face, with only his nose poking through safely.

"Don't just watch it, Horlons!" he shouted. He sounded panicked and it _really _wasn't helping matters.

I was frozen to the spot, shocked and utterly embarrassed. But as his brow began encroaching on his hair-line, I knew I had to do something.

"I don't know what to do, Jamie," I admitted, flustered.

He couldn't speak to reply though, the hair having taken over his mouth, his face resembling a tar-coated Pygmy Puff.

In all the hubbub, I have to say, it was a pretty funny sight. Arms above his head in alarm, and shouts emerging muffled and distorted through the shrubbery that had become his face, I'd have been laughing had I not been the cause.

"Finite incantatum."

Professor Forbish's strong incantation snapped me back to reality. I could see that disappointed glint in his eyes, the same one all adults had when someone of my generation did anything close to panic.

_"Back in my day, panicking meant the killing curse at the hands of fifty ruthless Death Eaters," _they'd drone. It was quite tiresome. I'm not sure even the most insane Death Eater would _Avada _me just for not knowing how to release James from the grip of his eyebrows.

Forbish was shoving his wand back up the sleeve of his robes when he next addressed me. He could take as long as he needed; I was still composing myself.

"Miss Horlons," he scowled, glaring down at me.

I gulped.

"Yes sir?"

"What class are we currently in, Miss Horlons?"

I was really regretting staying up almost all night by then. I was struggling to keep eye contact with the professor, let alone follow what he was saying.

"Class, sir?"

"This, Miss Horlons," he snarled, "Is Transfiguration. This is not a Charms class. The aim was to transfigure, not to engorge. So please do tell how you went so drastically wrong."

With the eyes of the class on me, waiting for the Slytherin princess' eventual crack, I felt everything imploding. The odds were against me; my mind had gone blank; out of the corner of my eye, I could see James had returned to normal and was looking at me with concern.

This was too much.

I met James' gaze with a pleading look. There wasn't much more embarrassment I could take, having disrupted the lesson within five minutes. Forbish wasn't one to go easy on a student for any reason – he was never going to let me off just because I had a rough day yesterday, unlike Professor Longbottom, for example.

"Sir?" Jamie spoke up, questioningly. "I think it was my fault, Professor. I shouldn't have been moving when she cast the spell."

Never had I loved that boy more.

"In that case, Mr Potter, we'll have to assign some homework from this lesson. An essay, three feet, on the consequences of the caster or castee losing concentration."

The groans of the class echoed around the room. We already had mock exams to prepare for. There was barely time left in the day to squeeze in a pointless essay, but then, Forbish had never been known for his fairness.

As I took my seat again, I could feel that James still hadn't looked away from me. Forbish had launched into a spiel about paying attention in lessons. Everyone was slowly leaving us alone to return to practicing their spells again, so I felt safe to look up.

"You okay?" Jamie mouthed.

I shrugged. There was no point lying outright; my warmed face and drooping eyelids were probably a dead give-away, no matter how well Eveline and Gracie had done me up.

"I will be," I mouthed back.

That was enough to spur Jamie into raising his hand.

"Professor, I think I should go to the Hospital Wing about my eyebrows, please?" Forbish only nodded, distracted by Jaycee Hague, sitting a few rows behind us, who'd begun snorting obnoxiously through the pig nose she'd been given by her partner. She always had been overly worried about looking as good as possible when there were single males around.

"Can I take someone to make sure I get there in one piece?"

He was oozing charm now, pushing it as far as he thought he could get.

When Forbish again only gave a curt nod, Jamie had grabbed my hand and hauled me from the room before I knew what was happening.

He didn't say a word until we'd made it down to the ground floor. My eyes were burning something fierce, my heels shuffling sluggishly.

"Can we slow down please, Jamie?" He glanced down, a soft look in place. For once, the grating smile was absent – definitely a relief. Giving my hand a squeeze, we descended one more staircase, ambled our way down one more corridor, and came to a halt only once we'd reached a familiar portrait of a bowl of fruit.

When we were sat inside at a table, the elves hastening to grab a few cookies at James' request, he turned on me.

"So what's up, darling?"

* * *

_I got another review, so thank you so much to SuzieMac! Reviews really do make me happy, as do readers - please let me know what you think so far? Any thoughts on the characters, the writing style? _

_On a separate note, this story now contains the most words I've ever published for one individual body of work... quite proud of that. I love everyone who's reading this,_

_* * * Innocent Magic * * *_


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